This story was sent in by Jason M. from Bakersfield, California.
I’ve never been a great sleeper, especially on weeknights. I work early shifts at a warehouse on the outskirts of Bakersfield, and by the time I get home, eat something simple, and shower, I’m usually fighting to stay awake. Most nights I end up dozing off with some random YouTube video playing on low volume, just enough noise to keep my mind from spinning. That was exactly what I was doing on a Thursday night last spring. It was a little after 1:00 a.m., and I remember because I checked the clock twice, annoyed that I wasn’t asleep yet even though my eyes kept drifting shut.
It was warm for that early in the year, the kind of dry heat that hangs around even after midnight. I had cracked my bedroom window about an inch to get some airflow. Outside, the neighborhood was quiet—no traffic, no dogs barking, nothing. The only light came from the moon and a weak streetlamp a few houses down. My curtains were open just enough for the moonlight to spill across the floor.
Right before I drifted off, I noticed something strange. The shadow of my window frame on the wall looked darker than usual, heavier in one spot, as if something outside was blocking part of the light. At first, I didn’t think much of it. I figured it was the big pepper tree in my neighbor’s yard moving in the breeze. I’ve seen the branches cast weird shapes at night before. But something about it felt… off. The shadow wasn’t shifting at all. It was just a solid, unmoving mass where it shouldn’t be.
Half-asleep, I told myself I was imagining it. When you’re tired enough, your brain fills in blanks with nonsense. But the more I stared at it, the more I realized that the shape almost looked like a person standing just outside the window. Not close enough for me to see a face, but close enough that the outline was undeniably human.
I didn’t move. I didn’t even breathe for a few seconds. I remember the sudden drop in my stomach, the kind you get when you miss a step in the dark. My first instinct was that it had to be a trick of the light—maybe the neighbor’s trash bins, or a tall plant, or something I’d never noticed before. I kept telling myself that because the alternative didn’t make sense. Who would be standing in my yard at one in the morning? And why would they just stay still like that?
Another minute passed. The shadow didn’t shift. It didn’t lean. It didn’t waver. It was perfectly still, like whoever it belonged to was holding their breath the same way I was.
I tried to convince myself to roll over, grab my phone, do something—anything—but I couldn’t bring myself to look away. I had this small, irrational-feeling thought that if I moved even a little, the figure might react to it. Might turn. Might get closer.
I don’t know how long I stared at that shadow. It could’ve been thirty seconds or five minutes. Time does weird things when you’re scared. Eventually, I blinked, just once, and when I opened my eyes again, the shape was gone. Not faded or shifted—gone completely, like someone had stepped backward out of the moonlight.
I lay there frozen long after I realized it wasn’t there anymore. Even when I finally reached for my phone, my hand was shaking so much I dropped it on the carpet. I didn’t go to the window. I didn’t even cross the room. I just sat with my back pressed against the headboard, staring at the space where the shadow had been.
Around three in the morning, exhaustion finally dragged me under.
The next morning, everything looked normal. The yard was empty. My window screen was still in place, the latch untouched. The ground under the window is mostly hard-packed dirt, and I didn’t see any fresh footprints. No signs of someone climbing over the low gate on the side of the house. Nothing out of place at all.
I tried to brush it off as fatigue, or the moon hitting the glass at a weird angle, or maybe even a neighbor walking past at the perfect moment. But two things kept digging at me. First, the shape was too close—right outside the window, not out by the fence. And second, I remembered something I had noticed earlier that week and completely forgotten about. On Monday night, when I took the trash out around eleven, I thought I heard someone walking slowly on the sidewalk behind me. Not just footsteps—more like the sound of someone stopping and starting in a way that didn’t sound casual. When I looked back, no one was there. I chalked it up to my nerves and moved on.
That little detail came rushing back after the shadow incident, and suddenly the idea that it had all been in my head didn’t feel as solid as it had the night before.
For the next few days, I caught myself checking the window every time I walked past it, just glancing out without meaning to. I didn’t see anything, no person lurking around, no weird silhouettes. But at night, especially when the house got quiet, I kept thinking about how still that shape had been. Not tree-branch still. Not trash-can still. Deliberately still.
About a week later, something else happened. I came home from work one afternoon and noticed the side gate—usually propped open a few inches by the warped hinge—was fully shut. Not latched, just pushed inward so it looked closed at a distance. I asked my landlord if he’d been around, and he said no. It was such a tiny thing that I almost didn’t connect it, but the timing made my skin crawl. That gate barely moves in the wind.
The odd part is, nothing else ever came of it. No break-in, no trespassing report from neighbors, no strange noises in the following weeks. If someone had been out there that night, they didn’t try again—or they were better at staying hidden the next time.
I don’t sleep with the window cracked anymore. I keep the curtains drawn tight and the bedroom light on low, even if it makes the room stuffy. I know it sounds paranoid, but once you’ve stared at a human-shaped shadow that shouldn’t be there, you stop caring about whether your habits seem dramatic. You just want to feel like there’s a barrier between you and whatever might be outside.
Even now, on the nights when the moon is bright and the house is quiet, I can still picture that unmoving outline standing just beyond the glass, as if it never really left—just stepped back far enough to wait.